Editor: The latest Climate Change Committee report has found that only two-fifths of emissions reductions are on target and refer to “risky choices” by government which rely heavily on unproven technology and include few plans to reduce demand.

Government plans for achieving net zero by 2050 have been challenged in the courts and been found to be illegal. They have until March 2023 to produce a new plan.

Net Zero have produced a damning report, The Ambition Gap, which details many of the major problems with the approach government is currently taking. For example, at the current rate of funding, it will take 800 years to retrofit our 25 million homes with heat pumps, and £10 billion a year is still being used to subsidise fossil fuels.

However, all is not lost. The same team — Net Zero — are behind the Climate and Ecology Bill which is making its way through Parliament. The Bill is designed to ensure it takes full account of the science.

The Climate Change Committee tell us that there are high levels of concern about the climate within the population. Straw-polls conducted by several local climate action groups in the town centres of Cardigan, Carmarthen, Lampeter, the National Eisteddfod and Pembrokeshire County Show reveal that climate concern is very real in this area. On each occasion, the vast majority report that they perceived the climate and nature crisis as at least a problem with many recognising it as an ”extremely serious crisis”.

There is clearly licence for government at all levels to take more action.West Wales Climate Coalition exists to provide a space for collabor-action between climate and social justice groups in west Wales. We strive to follow the principles set out in the Well Being of Future Generations Act (2015) and believe that together, our voices have more weight.

Our members include unions, faith, resilience, divest, climate justice and environmental groups including Friends of the Earth and Stand Up To Racism.

Vested interests and lobby groups have very deep pockets. But we can win... we must win. The very existence of everything that we hold dear is at stake. The solutions to the current energy crisis are the same as those to the climate and environmental crisis. Individually we can have impact, but we have more if we act together.

It is clear that the majority of the public want government at every level to be putting this at the top of their agendas.

Jane Mansfield,

West Wales Climate Coalition